Berlin, 22 April (AKI) – The Al-Qaeda linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan on Wednesday released a video threatening the “criminal” German government and citizens of the Jewish faith, according to German media.

In the video, the third released this year, shows a man identified as “Commander Mohammad”, who criticises the presence of German troops in Afghanistan.

The man accuses “the sons of Germany of being in the service of the Jews” unlike “Granddad Hitler”.

Investigators believe the video’s release may be linked to a major Islamist terrorism trial which opened on Wednesday at a high-security court in the northwestern German city of Duesseldorf .

In the trial, three Germans and one Turkish national are accused of planning a series of simultaneous bomb attacks against discos and pubs and the United States airbase in Ramstein and against Germany’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office.

Two of the German suspects are converts to Islam while the third is a German citizen of Turkish descent. They face charges of belonging to a terrorist organisation, plotting murder, and conspiracy to conduct a bomb attack.

The trial is expected to last one to two years. If the defendants are found guilty, they could face prison terms of up to 15 years.

Prosecutors claimed the men were planning to use about 10 times as much explosives as were used in the deadly July 2005 attacks on London transport that killed 56 people and injured thousands.

The plot was at an advanced stage and the attacks could have killed over 50 people, according to police.

Around 300 German federal agents were involved in monitoring the cell for several months, before police swooped in on the group in what was one of Germany’s biggest anti-terror operations to date.

Three of the defendants were arrested in the Germany’s western Sauerland region and the fourth was arrested in Turkey and extradited to Germany in November last year.

Prosecutors say the four men belong to a little-known group called the Islamic Jihad Union with roots in Uzbekistan and ties to Al-Qaeda.